Police in China enlist Internet users for help

Dec 25, 2010

Policemen patrol in Beijing on December 10. Police in China are offering cash and other rewards to encourage the country's millions of Internet users to help solve criminal investigations, state media said Saturday.

Police in China are offering cash and other rewards to encourage the country's millions of Internet users to help solve criminal investigations, state media said Saturday.

Authorities in the far-western region of Xinjiang this month posted a photo of a crime scene on the Internet alongside a reward of 500 to 5,000 yuan (75 to 750 dollars) in cash or so-called QQ coin for information about the case, the China Daily said.

QQ coin is a form of currency that registered users of the popular instant messaging service QQ use to pay for virtual products such as games.

While the reward scheme has yet to yield any useful clues, authorities said it was a good way to tap the country's vast online population -- the world's biggest at more than 420 million.

"Police have to keep up with the times and it is both necessary and helpful to mix traditional investigation methods with modern information tools and platforms," an unidentified public security official was quoted as saying.

"We believe it gives us a broader range of help by counting on netizens, such as QQ users, simply because there are so many of them."

Police in the eastern province of Jiangsu had more success with their online offer last month of 10,000 yuan or equivalent QQ coin for information about a case.

A week after the appeal was posted, an online user contacted police and identified the suspect as his friend.

(AP) -- Police in central China have shut down a hacker training operation that openly recruited thousands of members online and provided them with cyberattack lessons and malicious software, state media said Monday.

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User comments : 17

Next we'll read about how Genachowski is advising the Chinese government on how to use "net neutrality" to make sure that their citizens are not plotting against them, or guilty of other ThoughtCrimes.

Next we'll read about how Genachowski is advising the Chinese government on how to use "net neutrality" to make sure that their citizens are not plotting against them, or guilty of other ThoughtCrimes.

I would welcome more public surveillance in America.

One need only watch the depressing "Nancy Grace" to see just how many kidnappings, rapes, and murders happen in broad daylight and end up not getting solved for years on end, if ever.

Maybe Google will one day end up doing the police department's and forensics investigators jobs for them, as their surveillance and information technology apparently already far exceeds all government institutions combined.

More crimes would be prevented if the perps know they can't possibly get away with it. This only works on somewhat rational persons, and wouldn't necessarily prevent school shootings and suicide attacks through psychology alone, but it might help detect such a crime in progress in time to stop it anyway.

Moreover, full public surveillance doesn't violate any part of the bill of rights. So as computer memory technology allows, they should put at least a black and white, megapixel class video camera on like every street light or two.

This would certainly make it impossible to kidnap, murder, or rape in any public place, which is what happens now and people get away with it. It would also make it easier to detect and track perps of many, many other violent crimes, thefts, or sex crimes done inside a home or work place, because you can see the person coming and going, and if you know when and where a crime was committed you just check all possible camera records to see who was in the area at the time. It gives you the benefit of having an eye-witness at almost every key location at all times. Should speed up the detective work and prosecution, and not only that, it would greatly decrease the number of innocents who go to prison for crimes they didn't do.

If we have a right to "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness," then that means we have such rights in the context of defending ourselves from crime too.

If people are so paranoid about the government infringing upon their "rights" then why don't you also want to be protected from the random murderer or rapist who not only infringes on the same rights, but openly does worse?

If you have to choose between cameras and microphones everywhere, but at least you and your wife aren't going to be randomly raped and murdered, vs no cameras, then bring on the cameras.

The other thing is as these technologies become cheaper, individuals can privatize public surveillance. What I mean by this is everyone put video cameras on your home and your vehicles so that YOU can monitor these locations for detection of crimes, and back it up off-site in a cloud server or a safety deposit box.

Now for you paranoids, if the "Big Brother" government wants to frame you for a crime with a doctored video, you have independent video evidence.

And on the other hand, if the government surveillance has detected a crime, it may be that your own videos will detect the actual event, or the perp fleeing the scene, etc, and you can offer your private video to corroborate the prosecution's evidence.

so surveillance is a good thing:

1) It prevents some crimes all together.

2) It solves crimes faster

3) It protects the innocent from false accusation and faulty detective work or prosecution

The fool who gave me a bunch of 1's must like crime that is currently unsolved/unpreventable. Why else would you be opposed to the ability to solve or even prevent such crimes immediately?

I think we all agree that rape and murder are the most dispicable evils. If you are not doing those things, you have nothing to hide. If you are doing those things, we need to catch your sorry ass immediately.

It is inexcusable that a serial killer in modern times can murder 2, 5, 10, 15 or more people before anyone even catches on. Where will your stupid "rights" be one day when, God forbid, such an evil person shows up at your door and murders you and rapes your wife? Then your relatives will complain about why they weren't caught earlier.

this is empowerment for the weak, the honest, and the innocent, and you can't seem to comprehend that.

Some terrorists murder a few thousand people in a building, and you'll go to the end of the earth to hunt them down and kill or prosecute them, and rightly so.

Yet there are thousands and thousands of unsolved domestic murders and rapes in America every year. Why aren't you concerned about finding these bastards, and preventing and solving these crimes too?

Based on crime rate statistics for the U.S., the murder rate for 2009-2010 year was: 0.042802 per 1,000 people.

Louisiana's murder rate is 11.9 per 100,000 people.

It also makes me sick to see know-nothings blaming lack of education for the murder rate.

Yeah, that really explains the unibomber, or how in California a pair of twins women who were validictorian and salutatorian in school and college ended up trying to kill one another. Try again psycho-babble morons. You can't "educate" away evil. You just make evil even more dangerous now that they have been educated.

Do you actually care what scores you get here for the crime of posting facts and stuff? This site, like most of the Popsci's are dominated by a cadre of the hard left who want everyone to think that science proves leftism.

I really could care less what my "scores" are like. My purpose here is to assure that leftists get refudiated, and see how they like having Rule #5 shoved up their noses, as they have done to the rest of us since the 1960's.

I really could care less what my "scores" are like. My purpose here is to assure that leftists get refudiated

Refudiated?

You're "Sarah Palin" stupid.

No, but I deliberately used it because I knew it would set you off. It worked.

BTW, the New Oxford Dictionary made it 2010 word of the year, not because it was stupid, but because "From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used ‘refudiate,’ we have concluded that neither ‘refute’ nor ‘repudiate’ seems consistently precise, and that ‘refudiate’ more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of ‘reject.’"

So much for "stupid" Palin, who is brilliant at getting leftist heads to explode.

I really could care less what my "scores" are like. My purpose here is to assure that leftists get refudiated

Refudiated? You're "Sarah Palin" stupid.

No, but I deliberately used it because I knew it would set you off. It worked. (And typically, invoked a personal insult.)

BTW, the New Oxford Dictionary made it 2010 word of the year, not because it was stupid, but because "From a strictly lexical interpretation of the different contexts in which Palin has used 'refudiate,' we have concluded that neither 'refute' nor 'repudiate' seems consistently precise, and that 'refudiate' more or less stands on its own, suggesting a general sense of 'reject.'"

So much for "stupid" Palin, who is brilliant at getting leftist heads to explode.

You mean Core Netiquette rule 5?

No, I mean Alinsky's Rules for Radicals #5:"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon."

Which is on the NEA's list of recommended reading. They are actually proud of trying to propagandize our children.

QC makes a strong argument based on his gut but not backed by facts. The United Kingdom is a prime example of the big brother society he wants, however the crime statistics don't lie. More video doesn't mean less crime, it means criminals will wear masks.

Actually, more prevalent public surveillance would scale better if the analysis was done by machines other than humans -- say, tracing the steps of everyone who was in the specific place / time of a crime on request (by investigators), or detecting aggressive behavior and sounding an alarm (even if some are false alarms, quick inspection of the footage would reveal if the police is really needed). There's research pointing in that direction just now.

Also, since only a tiny fraction of the footage would be actually watched by people (police), it addresses privacy concerns somewhat.

Alert China Police: This is a person defrauding people First Name: ChanglongSurname: ZouAddress: 625 tia yu rd.City: BeijingState: BeijingZip: 100027Country:China. as of this moment, there is a scam in progress

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